Two-thirds of my children are sleeping under this roof right now. With their delightful partners. The other one-third is in a lovely ski town out west, with a good friend and her family.
It would have been helpful if someone had told me, when I was young, the only thing that will ever matter is the days when your kids are sleeping peacefully under the same roof as you.
It would have saved me a ton of vocational irritability, relationship angst and confusion about life.
It’s snowing here on this Vermont hilltop and the only sound I hear is no sound. Two of the three hearts I help build are close by, resting. It’s bliss.
As a kid I pretended to play school in my parents’ house, dreaming of the day when I would have my own classroom to stand in front of.
When I grew up I was a teacher: Kindergarten, second grade, fourth grade. In the years when my kids were kids I dabbled in things, hoping to keep my mind from drifting too far out to sea: writing for the local newspaper, volunteering for AmeriCorps. Later, when they became more self-sufficient and I had traveled through the gates of hell for a spell, I arrived back into the daylight on a mission: chaplaincy, then ministry. I had found a version of religion I could believe in, though still haunted by the terrible realities that were being revealed about the Catholic church, the place of much of my childhood training ground.
Believe me, I never once played at pastor when I was a kid, dreaming of the day when I would have my own church to stand in front of.
These days I dream of standing in front of a very large audience, preferably in a beautiful setting, like Red Rocks, telling people how important and meaningful it is that they are alive at this moment in time. Telling people that there is, indeed, a holy chapel in this world, and they are living in it, it’s their very body, their life. T’is not to be wasted, this miracle; the less time spent hand-wringing over this Life Project, the better. It’s going to end one way or another, and most likely sooner than later.
Of course, I would not have liked it, when I was young, if someone had suggested that the one thing that would matter more than all the others would be motherhood. I would have been offended. I would have waved my copy of Ms. magazine, but here I sit on this perfect November Vermont morning, waiting for 2/3 of my kids and their partners to wake up so I can make them breakfast. No one told me how much this would matter.
I want to circle back around and weave in something I forgot to write about when I did the How It Went recap the other day.
This is really important.
Twice in the past year I subjected myself to something that really scared me, something I said I didn’t do, something I didn’t think I could do.
Both times it was successful and I came away with a new sense of what’s possible, the imaginary boundary in my mind shoved further out toward the horizon.
As a spiritual medium I almost alway work one-on-one with people. It’s a rich conversation between the person who has died, me and the one still here. It can go on for two hours at times. In the process we sort through life issues, share what the spirit realm has to say about life and death, laugh about quirky things that come up and cry about the things we feel deeply.
I always said I was not a medium who stood in front of an audience to perform. I don’t do that, that thing where you stand in front of a bunch of people and see who comes through was what I always said.
It would have been more accurate if I had said, I’m afraid to do that thing where you stand in front of a bunch of people and see who comes through.
Then I did it.
I volunteered to do it, actually. I set myself up to give it a try. I offered to speak at an evening event, to channel in front of an audience. And it worked.
Then, a few months later, I offered to speak with a small group of people to see who might come through, and it worked.
Huh. There I was being the person I said I wasn’t.
All of us have ideas about who we are. We also have ideas about who we are not. These are stories we tell ourselves and other people, usually so often that we all start to believe them.
This past year I tried a lot of new things and the outcomes were overwhelmingly positive. I took some risks, stepped into new territory, and I’m almost sixty. I’m not nearly done growing. In fact, I intend to keep growing, learning, trying, until I die. That’s the point of this Game of Life. What is the good of limiting yourself by anything? Do trees get to a certain height then say, I think I’ll stop here?
Not that I’ve noticed.
But let me clarify: I did more than just take a few risks. I willingly subjected myself to things that terrified me.
And I survived. And I am a better person for it. Braver, more humble, more curious.
It’s not about me, this life, it’s not about what I think is or isn’t possible. Infinity has ideas for all of us and they are very, very good.
Amen. God bless. I hope you have enough to eat today and at least one person to hug.
xomo
Happy Thanksgiving out there, HCHE, the missing 1/3.
Office Hours: I work with folks one-on-one in a spiritual care/medium capacity, drawing in wisdom from the spirit realm to give guidance and support. It is so much fun, a whole new way to strategize the way forward in life.
We can meet in my cozy studio in Saratoga Springs, NY, or online.
More information can be found HERE.
Coming in 2025: we reinvent church! Stay tuned.
You are a beautiful soul. Keep shining bright for us. A Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
A.